$45,699

1,153

Black Hole Council is a negotiation and deduction game about deciding the fates of 32 different planets. As a shady member of the Council, you have a secret Agenda for each kind of planet. Your goal is to negotiate for your Agenda so that you can gain influence and become the new Senior Councilor. If you can deduce your rivals' goals, you've got an even better chance to block their plans and dominate the negotiations. So what if you have to toss a few planets into the black hole along the way?

Orange Machine Games was created by Don Eskridge, designer of The Resistance, Avalon, and Abandon Planet. In 2017 we Kickstarted Abandon Planet and fully delivered to Backers that August. That was a fantastic experience, and now we're excited for this new project! If the idea of negotiating the fate of planets, bluffing your goals and blocking others' plans sounds fun to you, then this is your space jam. Black Hole Council is the 4-8 player party game for gamers that rewards cunning and manipulation as much as clever deduction and tactical card play.

See what Girls' Game Shelf thought of Black Hole Council!

Want the whole enchilada? Check out a full-game play-through here, with TWIST Gaming.

Do you prefer to read reviews instead of watch them? The lovely folks at Board Game Barrage reviewed an early copy of the game, so check out their thoughts!

We want your help naming the 32 Planets in Black Hole Council! Right now you can go to our Facebook page to comment with name suggestions for each planet. Get weird with it!

Why are we asking for name ideas? Because we're taking your best suggestions and letting you the Backers vote on which names we choose! In fact, you can vote on the first 10 planets right here!

Be sure to comment with your planet names as quickly as possible if you want to see your suggestions in the next batch! We'll have the next set of 10 planets up in 10 days!

Although everyone can vote, only votes attached to Backer emails will count in the end! So Comment on Facebook now with your suggestions, and vote soon to have to your voice heard. Let's come up with some great names!

Easy to learn, quick to play games: Black Hole Council can be learned in 10 minutes and takes an hour or less to play, even at high player counts.

Explosive Interaction: No person is an island in Black Hole Council; every action that occurs will affect the whole table, and that's exactly how we want it. This is a game of intense negotiation and deduction that rewards cunning manipulation as much as quick tactics. You'll want to be off your cell phone and on your game, since your rivals definitely will be.

Larger Groups: Orange Machine Games play 4 - 8 players, and this is no exception. If you're looking for a party game that also plays great for gamers, Black Hole Council fits the bill. It's simple enough that non-gamers can learn and enjoy it, and negotiation and deduction buffs will go over strategies all night.

Black Hole Council was designed by Don Eskridge, designer of The Resistance, Avalon, and Abandon Planet. Don's goal: make players look in each other's stone cold eyes, laugh out loud, and blow everything up on the road to victory.

Black Hole Council is full of components (it plays up to 8 players after all), and arrives in a reasonable 10" x 10" x 2" package. Here's exactly what comes in the box:

1 Board, Manual, Sand Timer, Round Marker, and Leader Token

Over-sized cards: 32 unique Planet Cards 20 Agenda Cards

64 Player Cards, 10 Intrigue Cards, and 40 Coin Tokens

8 Player tokens (with custom design if we reach the Stretch Goal!)

You should be involved with this. Why? Because your personal creativity can be a part of this project. As mentioned above, we're naming Planets, here! There are 32 unique Planet cards and we want your suggestions for all of them. What's more, we're going to be including 20 quotes on the Agenda Cards, from both us and you!

What would you as a Councilor have to say about the planets you Settle, Tax, Mine, Conquer, and throw into the Black Hole? We've got a ton of great ideas, but we'll be taking at least 10 suggestions from the Kickstarter community ONLY, from the Kickstarter comments page. If you want to suggest a quote, get on the comments page and make a post like this:

"Eh, water is over-rated. Send those dirty aqua planets to the Black Hole!"

- Count Derish of the Red Waste

#Agenda

Think you can write a better quote? Let's find out! We'll be jumping on the Comments section to interact with you and to help guide the quote ideas! We see Kickstarter as a great way to get you involved in building this Orange Machine universe.

These are super important upgrades to us! But, even more importantly, we see the value of being a Kickstarter backer as not simply upgraded components, but the opportunity to be a part of a community that helps a project come to life. It's being able to get involved with cool, creative aspects like Planet Names and Councilor Quotes, and to provide suggestions on art and design as we go. We're thrilled to have a community here to help bring Black Hole Council to your doors!

Shipping for Black Hole Council is pretty simple - it's one copy of the game, plus any extra copies you'd like to order. Plus, we're EU Friendly! Here are the shipping rates you'll see on checkout:

Shipping for one copy of Black Hole Council:

U.S., U.K: $10

Canada, Europe: $15

Everywhere else: $20

Russia and Brazil are unavailable for shipping for this project.

For every extra copy you'd like, just add $25 (the cost of one game). The extra shipping of about $3 per copy will be added after the campaign in the post-Kickstarter survey.

That's it! Let's open up the doors to the Black Hole Council.

Risks and challenges

Orange Machine Games already has one production under its belt; we've learned the ropes, and we know how this game is going to be manufactured and delivered to your doorstep. That said, there are always issues that can pop up. We're confident that we'll deliver Black Hole Council by August 2018 at the latest, but it is not impossible that solar flares or a black hole itself could cause some delays.